| 15 September 2009
How much better can it get than this Addicts? It's only the second game of the season and we're already entering a matchup with a division rival with the division lead at stake Sunday. Whoever wins the game will have a leg up on the race for the division crown owning a 2 - 0 season record to go with a 2 - 0 division record with all the other division teams having at least one loss in both league and division standings. It's likely that Arizona will have a hard time winning at Jacksonville Sunday and the Rams will almost certainly have a difficult time on the road against Washington. How sweet is it that we have a chance to start putting a Mora special on the division title run right at the start of the season by putting a stranglehold on the division lead and making everyone else play catchup?
Whoever emerges victorious Sunday will have a good chance of owning a two game lead in the division with the Cards and Rams having tough games this weekend excepting that the loser of Sunday's contest will only be one game behind the leader. That makes Sunday's game particularly big with a lot at stake for it being only the second game of the season. You gotta love that as a sports fan and especially as a Seahawk's fan because it's been awhile since they played in a big game with something important on the line. Of course, this early in the year no game can really de-rail your whole season but whoever wins this one really gives the other two teams not playing in this contest a problem to overcome if they both come out with a loss as expected Sunday.
The 49er's present many of the same problems that playing the Rams did last week. They are primarily a running team who has a firm committment to be a powerhouse ground team and therefore will present the Seahawks with another somewhat one dimensional team to deal with. For all their desire to be a powerful force to be reckoned with on the ground, they didn't really show that last Sunday at Arizona where Gore averaged only 1.4 yards per carry and ended the day with 30 yards on 22 carries. San Francisco only gained 202 yards total with a net of 21 yards rushing, supposedly their strong suit. To continue reading this article, please press "Read more..." below.
Arizona is favored to win the division at this point by most publications and analysts so the Seahawk's coaches should note that San Francisco beat the leading contender while failing miserably in the area of their primary offensive strength. Hill was also sacked 4 times demonstrating a possibly weak offensive line. They must have done something right though because they won on Arizona's home field. It always scares me to see a team with those kind of bad stats beat the team favored to win the division and doing it on the favorites home field. That means there's something to watch out for when playing the 49er's and it's not apparent from the stats. That something almost assuredly has to be their defense and that's what the Seahawks have to watch out for this Sunday. This is going to be two nasty aggressive defenses getting after each other.
I think our offense is going to get it's first real test of the season. San Francisco racked up three sacks of their own and held the Cardinal's offense considered by most analysts to be talented and high powered to 299 total yards. Fitzgerald caught 6 passes for 71 yards which is not a remarkable day for him. Hightower (12 for 121) and Urban (5 for 74) both put up more yards that Fitz did which means that most likely, the 49er's were concentrating on stopping Fitzgerald and did so at the expense of allowing Hightower and Urban to have good games.
I would expect them to possibly do the same with Houshmandzadeh and that Burleson and Carlson will make them pay. If they paid attention to the Rams game however, they might concentrate on Carlson instead at which time Housh will hurt them. They can't double cover all of our receivers and I think our starting receivers and tight end can hurt them badly if they try it. Even in the standard set with two wide receivers, a tight end, a fullback, and running back, Seattle has 5 quality receivers on the field with all their running backs able to catch the ball and run routes. If Seattle can effectively run the ball so their play action keeps the 49er's off balance, they will make it difficult for them to contain the Seahawk attack just like the Rams found out in last Sunday's game. How fast they get the running game going is probably going to be how fast they start to move the ball as well.
Sunday's game has a good chance to be where we have the first real test of our running game and a good progress report of where the ZBS is at. The 49er's held the Cardinals to 40 net yards on the ground although the Cards aren't known as a strong running team. Still, it will be harder to get our running game going against the 49er's and therefore our play action may not be as effective particularly in the first quarter-and-a-half or so. All in all though, this is an excellent game in which to see how well our offense plays against a good defense. This game will tell us more than the Rams game did about our Seahawks and build another block in the profile of the 2009 Seahawks.
Offensively, I'm not sure that the 49er's are that much more potent than the Rams were. I would hope that our defense can handle them as well as they handled the Rams. I don't think Gore is the running threat that Jackson is and should be able to be contained by our front seven without too much trouble. This may well turn into a defensive game and the offense that can eek out a score or two may be responsible for the win. If it comes down to our offense against theirs, we'll win the game in my opinion as I believe our offense to be superior.
The Seahawks didn't have any real bad moments last Sunday except for the blocked field goal (which ultimately didn't hurt them but not because of anything they did). They didn't get rattled when neither team could get anything going and hung in there until they got untracked and then kept playing hard until the end.
We'll be on the road at Candlestick which has been a problem in the past for the Seahawks but at least it's not the dreaded 10:00 am start. I have a suspicion that Mora will be able to get more out of the Seahawks on the road than his predecessor did for whatever reason. During the pre-season, the Seahawks seemed to play just as well on the road as they did at Qwest Field gaining one of their pre-season victories against San Diego on their home turf. I do think they will overcome the road game blues this Sunday and take charge of the West. I'll come back with some more bold predictions for that game and a proposition for you all to participate on Thursday or Friday.
Hasta,
BillT
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